


and your golden rule to rust

by electriceell



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-07-05 22:02:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15872592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/electriceell/pseuds/electriceell
Summary: Matt has rules when it comes to dealing with people. Leave it to Foggy to screw it all up.





	1. Before

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fill no one asked for, for a very old kinkmeme prompt that someone else already filled. I'm sorry.
> 
> (prompt here: https://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/6856.html?thread=13864136#cmt13864136)
> 
> title from Jim Croce "One Less Set of Footsteps" - not really relevant, I just really like the line 'your silver tongue has turned to clay and your golden rule to rust'

Matt starts making _rules_  right after he starts working with Stick. The first rule: _don’t_ _let your injuries show_. _Ever_. No one has to say it, but he knows that if someone found out he would be in trouble and they wouldn’t let him see Stick. He’s never been a good liar, but the nuns are consistently overburdened and the same fabricated stories about tripping and bumping into furniture are unilaterally accepted. He quietly confesses to deceiving the nuns every Sunday.

 _Don’t let anyone know about your senses. Don’t show off your skills_. Matt learns the hard way that drawing any attention to his senses ends in misery. One of the girls in the orphanage is bleeding and Matt smells it and it scares him and no one seems to be worried but it’s been days and she hasn’t stopped bleeding. So Matt manages to work up the courage and tell Sister Anne Margaret that he’s worried. What follows is a long tirade on the importance of respecting people’s privacy and the sinfulness of his actions, followed by an impressive number of lashes on his knuckles, and being sent to bed without food for three days in a row. So he learns to not bring up the things he shouldn’t know without sight, but he thought with Stick would be different.

He should have been more careful, but one night, when Stick comes for an evening training session Matt can smell blood clinging to him, sense the heat of bruises blooming across his ribs. The smell of alcohol on his breath is so thick Matt thinks that he can even taste it on the air. And blood and bruises and booze all reminded him of Dad after he came home from fight. So Matt makes the mistake of asking Stick if he needed to be stitched up or needed Matt’s help with anything. Stick backhands Matt so hard he’s knocked to the ground. “You think I _need_ anything from a little brat like you?” Stick asks, before spitting on Matt. He makes him run sprints in the yard in freezing weather. When Matt has to stop and throw up Stick just lands a direct blow to Matt’s head then kicks him over into his sick and laughs.

“Still think I need you, kid?”

 _The Rules_ come into existence after Stick leaves.

 1)  _Don’t get attached to people; everyone can and will leave._

_2)_ _Don’t let your emotions show, it drives people away even faster._

_3)_ _Don’t feel._  

So Matt starts boxing up his emotions and putting them in storage. It takes time, but without Stick training him, Matt has nothing besides school and mass on Sunday. He meditates and pushes it down. He trains and tries to force emotions out in his sweat and blood. He tries to become the perfect little soldier that Stick wanted. Maybe Matt can be enough and he’ll come back. Because he can be what Stick wants him to be, he can be good enough if he just tries. 

_If you can become what people want you to be they won’t abandon you as quickly._

As he grows up, Matt realizes that his smile puts people at ease, makes him seem the humble, brilliant orphan that he needs to sell himself as. If he wants to go to Columbia, and he does, desperately, he needs them to see him like this. Self-effacing, quiet, and polite. The model student that the admissions board and financial aid office can pat themselves on the back for helping out. Playing the ‘poor, blind orphan’ makes him sick because he should be able to get this on merit alone, but he needs those scholarships and he can’t risk not getting this. 

Before moving into college, Matt finds out (1) that there are no singles to accommodate his request and (2) that his roommate will be Franklin Nelson. When Matt reads the name ‘Franklin Nelson’ he pictures what he’s always assumed Columbia students will be. A trust-fund kid from the upper east side who will, best case scenario, just ignore Matt’s existence and hopefully won’t have sex in their room when Matt’s there.

Matt’s general plan for college is to go on ignoring everyone around him. He’ll get the grades he needs to go to Columbia law and become the lawyer that helps the downtrodden people of Hell’s Kitchen. 

So the rules are firmly in place when he arrives, stumbling into his room where he knows someone, presumably his roommate is sitting, listening to music. He keeps the self-effacing grin on his face, presuming Franklin will at least attempt to hide is unease or displeasure at having a “handicapped” roommate. Instead, he meets Foggy.


	2. During

And all of a sudden Matt starts breaking his own rules. He doesn’t mean to. Even though he’s pleasantly surprised to find his roommate to be a genuinely nice guy who isn’t weird about the fact that he’s blind, he should still not be getting attached. But Foggy makes it really hard not to get pulled into his orbit. He’s just… he’s there all the time. Not in a bad way. But, when Matt comes home from the library, resolved for the umpteenth time to start to distance himself from Foggy, Foggy seems to sense it. He asks Matt what’s wrong and if he needs to be alone and hey, they can do whatever Matt wants tonight, Foggy doesn’t mind blowing off his plans.

 

Matt tries really hard to stick to Rule 3, which he’s started to think of as ‘The Cardinal Rule’ because he can’t let himself get close to Foggy and not tell him about his senses, but he also can’t tell Foggy about his senses or he’ll leave. Foggy leaving, something Matt thinks about a lot, something that **is** going to happen, cuts Matt in places he didn’t know could still hurt.

 

After living together for four years, after deciding to go to Columbia law together with promises of ‘Nelson & Murdock – Avocados at Law’ Matt’s kept his old rules and, over time, developed a new set, just for Foggy. So now there’s _The Rules for Everyone Else_ and _The Rules for Foggy_. And that’s really Matt’s world now. There’s Matt and Foggy and then there’s everyone else. Part of him thinks it’s pathetic (that part that sounds suspiciously like Stick), but most of him is warm and happy and home. He feels like he’s got a family again. It used to just be him and dad. Now it’s him and Foggy. And it’s good.

 

The first two rules from _The Rules_ carry over. _Don’t tell Foggy about his sense. Don’t let Foggy know he can do things a blind man couldn’t do or know things a blind man couldn’t know_.

 

He starts off trying desperately to keep himself from getting attached to Foggy, but even when he reminded himself of Foggy’s more annoying habits, for example, singing to himself very _very_ off key, his brain supplies twenty more amazing qualities about Foggy that certainly outweigh the singing. He’s kind, he’s thoughtful, he treats Matt as an equal, and the list goes on. And Matt knows there’s no way he isn’t developing a friendship with Foggy.

 

So that rule get’s scratched. Instead, Matt settles on ‘ _Make the most of the time you get with him’_. Sure, it’ll hurt like hell when Foggy goes, but he’s going to at least have as many good memories of him as possible. Something to hold onto when it’s over.

 

He tries to make their relationship all about Foggy. At first, Matt makes sure they talk about Foggy’s crushes, Foggy’s feelings, Foggy’s grades, but somehow, Foggy manages to slowly draw things out of Matt. He tells him about how much he loves Christmas, particularly the carols, how much he hates when people try to lead him places by his arm like a lost child, but he does his best to keep the bad stuff to himself. _Don’t talk about the orphanage; don’t talk about dad._ Because Foggy’s heart always picked up at the slightest mention of St. Agnus’ or his father and the last thing he wants to do is make Foggy sad, or worse, become the object of his pity.

 

In college, Matt tries to go along with anything Foggy wants to do. He wants to go to party? No problem. Matt can keep his senses in check and not let the noise and God awful smell of the party overwhelm him. The trouble is Foggy starts to learn Matt’s tells. Apparently Matt adjusts his glasses when he’s agreeing to something he doesn’t want to do. At least, that’s what Foggy tells him, some time during their second semester and after that, they don’t go to parties as often. Matt tries to convince Foggy he can go and Matt will have a quiet night at home, but Foggy insists that ‘friends don’t let friends become hermits’.

 

Foggy notices when Matt’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes, even when he’s wearing his glasses. Matt wasn’t a good liar as a child, but he thought he had at least gotten better. But maybe no one had ever really looked at him before. Not the way Foggy does. Matt wants to resent Foggy for not letting him hide from the world, from his emotions, but he can’t. He just can’t because he can tell how sad Foggy gets when Matt tries to hide things from him. So Foggy gets another new rule: _don’t lie to Foggy unless it’s absolutely necessary_. And even that gets blurry when he’s drunk. He comes so close to telling Foggy, but then there’s the little girl and her father and Matt makes a mistake and lets the devil out.

 

And everything goes to shit.

 

The rules are fucked because Matt’s lying to Foggy constantly; it feels like every breath is a lie. And now he has to break one rule to maintain the others. If he had just stuck to the third rule this wouldn’t be a problem. And he hates himself because he’s glad he broke the cardinal rule and let Foggy in. He’s a selfish piece of shit. So he won’t cut Foggy out, but he can’t seem to stop the devil now that he’s out.

 

And then there’s Karen and she becomes a part of their family and Matt is letting too many people in and they’re going to get hurt.

 

And Daredevil is slowly consuming him.

 

And this is trying to have your cake and eat it to. Matt knows he’s still trying to please Stick. Still molding himself into a soldier. And Matt knows he’s still trying to please Foggy. Keep up the charade of Matt Murdock of Nelson and Murdock when he knows the devil owns him now.

 

Worst of all, he knows he’s failing them both. He’s not Matt Murdock enough to be the friend Foggy deserves and he’s too much the devil to be the soldier Stick desired.

 

This is why there were rules. This is what happens when you break rules. Everything goes to shit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops now there's going to be a third chapter... it kind of took a life of its own.


End file.
